Many people lack a factual understanding of events in our region because the media report them inadequately. We blog here because our daughter Malki, murdered at the age of 15 in a restaurant massacre in Jerusalem, was a victim of jihadist hatred and barbarism. For jihadism and terrorism to end in Israel, New York, Madrid, London and everywhere else, people first need to understand the scale on which it is happening and why. This ongoing war is killing us.

Wednesday, June 15, 2016

15-Jun-16: Contemplating a Pal Arab lust for terror, The Economist goes for whitewash

Villagers in Nabi Saleh prepare to celebrate the release (via the Shalit Deal)of the most celebrated of the clan's numerous murderers, the woman whoengineered the Sbarro pizzeria massacre [Image Source]. For obvious reasons,the adoration of its murderers is generally absent from agenda-driven reporting about the odious clan.

Over at UK Media Watch("Promoting Fair
and Accurate Coverage of Israel") they have just published a critical analysis of what it takes to pull the wool over the eyes of
the editors at one of the world's best-regarded weeklies:

The Economist fancies
itself a sophisticated magazine,
one which “offers authoritative insight” into news, politics, business,
finance, science and technology. However, as it pertains to Israel, they've sometimes proventhemselves just
as vulnerable to the mindless group-think plaguing the rest of the
media. A case in point involves their review of The Way to the
Spring: Life and Death in Palestine by Ben Ehrenreich (The
view on the ground, June 11), a book
featuring the Tamimis of the West Bank town of Nabi Saleh.
Though some British media outlets have
caught on to the family’s
well-choreographed ‘Pasbara’, the anonymous Economist critic barely shows even
a hint of journalistic skepticism in the face of Ehrenreich’s risible
narrative... ["‘Sophisticated’ Economist duped by Pallywood tale
starring the Tamimis", Adam Levick, UK Media Watch - today]

Ehrenreich, who created what the editors at the Economist call "an elegant and moving account", came to our attention three years
ago with a cover story he wrote for the New York Times Sunday Magazine - an appalling
confection spun from fantasy, carefully-phrased half-truths, wishful thinking
and adoration of the redemptive power of murder. We hated it. And not only
because of the connection of the people of whom he was writing with the murder
of our daughter Malki - a tight, meaningful, ongoing and ugly connection.

romanticized the culture of terrorism in the Tamimis’ ‘little village’
and whitewashed the crime of its most infamous resident, a woman named Ahlam Tamimi,one of the main
terrorists responsible for the deadly Sbarro bombing in
2001.The
Economist review makes no mention of Ahlam Tamimi or the disturbing fact that,
according to Ehrenreich in his NYT Magazine feature, she is still quite admired
in the town. It’s actually quite extraordinary that a publication which
prides itself on peeling off the superficial layers of a story to reveal the
story behind the story published a review of a book featuring the Tamimis
without giving readers even the slightest inclination that the family, and the
protests they stage, represents something akin to Palestinian street theater, a Pallywood production packaged as real news.

The village of Nabi Saleh, almost all of whose inhabitants are Tamimis (owing to a deep attachment to ensuring members marry within the small clan) is far from being an idyllic pastoral hamlet. But it very much wants to be seen as one and goes to extraordinary lengths to conjure up a Potemkin village facade, an illusion replete with contrived legends of a struggle for decency, respect, human rights and a beleagured little pond of spring water. It's mostly invented, and cultivated assiduously. We explained some of the how a few months ago ["11-Sep-15: How devoted to non-violence are the villagers of Nabi Saleh really?"].

The true facts are not hard to get at. Yet no journalist we have met or whose work we have read appears to have made that effort. In fact, we can't recall even one published mainstream analysis where highly appropriate and seriously troubling questions were raised about the Tamimi narrative.We're left to ponder, and not for the first time, the manifest decline in the mass media's commitment to careful, factual, non-partisan, well-researched writing and respect for the common values of democratic societies - above all the value of
human life.

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THIS ONGOING WAR is not part of the activity of the Malki Foundation which was founded by us, Frimet and Arnold Roth of Jerusalem, on September 9, 2001. But it is inspired by the same tragic circumstances. The Malki Foundation (also known by its Hebrew name: Keren Malki) is a memorial to the life of our daughter, Malki. She's in the photo below this paragraph. Malki was murdered at the age of 15 in a massacre in the centre of Jerusalem carried out by Hamas.

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This Ongoing War: About this blog

Many people lack a factual understanding of events in our region because the media often report them inadequately. Our daughter Malki, murdered at the age of 15 in a restaurant massacre in Jerusalem, was a victim of jihadist hatred and barbarism. For jihadism and terrorism to end in Israel, in New York, in Madrid, in London and everywhere else, people first need to understand the scale on which it is happening. This ongoing war is killing us.